By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect.”
-Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 728 (1872)
In November of 1950 an Italian film directed by Roberto Rossellini entitled “L’Amore” opened in New York City with English subtitles. The film was an anthology of three stories, one of which, “The Miracle,” told the tale of an emotionally troubled peasant girl who is impregnated by a transient and believes that she is giving birth to Jesus. The film was voted best foreign language film by the New York Film Critics’ Circle. It was also condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency as “a sacrilegious and blasphemous mockery of Christian religious truth.” Francis Cardinal Spellman, the powerful archbishop of New York, insisted that the film demonstrated a need for stronger censorship laws. Within a few months the New York Board of Regents revoked the license to show the film, a decision upheld by the New York state courts under a law permitting the banning of any film “that may fairly be deemed sacrilegious to the adherents of any religious group.”
The subsequent legal battle is instructive in considering the reaction to the horrific attacks in France over the past two days.The film’s U.S. distributor contested the banning in a case that reached the Supreme Court. In Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952), the Court was asked to determine the constitutionality of the New York statute authorizing the banning of films deemed “sacrilegious.” The Court first concluded that motion pictures fall within the protection of the First and Fourteenth Amendments as a mode of expression. It then reversed the lower court decisions, holding that “the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraint upon expression of those views. It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches or motion pictures.” 343 U.S. at 505.
The Wilson decision teaches us two important lessons. First, it reminds us that freedom of speech is grounded in freedom of thought, the inalienable right to entertain any idea and to attempt to persuade others of its veracity. Second, it reiterates the notion that a nation committed to religious pluralism cannot exempt religious doctrine from criticism, or even ridicule. That truth has become increasingly battered in a world of shrinking dimensions and increasing cultural confrontation. No better, or more appalling, examples of the assault on free speech by religious ideologues in the wake of the French crime spree can be found than those provided by Anjem Choudary and Bill Donahue.
Mr. Choudary is an English lawyer and radical Islamist who is reported to have advocated, among other things, the assassination of the Pope. His views are blunt and unflinching. “Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression . . . the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It is time that the sanctity of a Prophet revered by up to one-quarter of the world’s population was protected.” Bill Donahue, who fancies himself a sort of censor deputatus on all opinions touching upon Catholicism, believes that the murder of Stephen Charbonnier, the publisher and editor of Charlie Hebdo, was to be expected. According to Mr. Donahue, “It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death.”
Mr. Choudary and Mr. Donahue represent flip sides of the same fundamentalist coin, and they are both wrong. The suggestion that critical speech, regardless of its vehemence, can merit a violent response is actually a rejection of a foundational principle for any cohesive society predicated upon diversity. It is for that very reason that efforts to criminalize speech deemed violative of religious doctrine, or political orthodoxy or social convention, is threatening and wrongheaded. No idea is deserving of respect beyond that which it can command by virtue of its tendency to compel conviction. No idea requires the protection of the law beyond the unreserved right to its expression.
Sources: Anjem Choudary, “People Know the Consequences,” USA Today (Jan. 8, 2015); “After Charlie Hebdo Attacks, U.S. Catholic group says cartoonists ‘provoked’ slaughter,” Washington Post (Jan. 7, 2015); Bill Donahue, “Muslims Are Right To Be Angry,” Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (Jan. 7, 2015); “Anjem Choudary: Profile,” The Telegraph (Jan. 4, 2010).
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays of art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Shulte: I don’t know if you’re being deliberately obtuse or if you are sincere in your misconceptions of censorship and free enterprise. Either way, feel free to carry on. Freedom of speech also allows incoherency.
RTD – I know what censorship is. I actually wrote the primary articles for the Encyclopedia of Censorship on film and theatre. Free enterprise is capable of censorship just as well as governments. And there is unofficial censorship as well as official censorship.
George and Lolita
It is hard to call Lolita, the book or the movie child porn, yet it involves a girl child, a pervert, and a participant/victim. Lolita is portrayed as a designer of her sexual relations with both Humbert as well as the narcissist Clare Quilty. Quilty is aptly portrayed as a writer of cutting edge theatre clothed in the sheep’s clothing of tradition and myth. Lolita, ends up married, pregnant, and inheriting her mom’s wealth. She represents sex at its conception in a girl, right after puberty. She is innocent, yet freely participates in her carnal expressions. Quilty’s narcissistic and pornographic involvement gets him waxed by Humbert. Humbert is a pervert, but merely a dupe. He is the real victim in the story. He gets his in the end as well. Nabokov’s work is anything but deserving to be banned. Capote went into the minds of the killers in ‘In Cold Blood’. This is a well used vehicle. To deal with things you have to understand them. This somewhat the opposite of censorship.
Regarding ‘Charlie Hebdo’, the cartoon published in the Times showing a guy with a huge nose and a turban saying something like, “I’ll fatua you if you don’t die laughing.”, is nothing compared to what the magazine and its predecessor did to Christianity. The French have lampooned Christianity since the Revolution. They had good reason, Christianity persecuted the people. They do it with style as in the expression, “That goes down like the Christ child in velvet trousers.” (Ca descend comme l’enfant Jesu en pantalons de velour.) when commenting on a good Merlot. They do it, sometimes, with no taste at all through magazines like Hari Kari and Charlie Hebdo. The even do it mildly in their commercials.
Religion, in all its contradictions, extremes, and perversities is a sitting duck for lampooning. Unfortunately it is life itself to too many. Enlightened people throughout the world can understand that Human Rights come before Religion and it is Society that permits Religion, not Religion that permits Society. However, sometimes you tick people off and the cause and effect aspect of the magazine vis a vis maniacs should not surprise us. In fact it is more surprising that more of this has not happened given the freedom of movement of these maniacs. That they were killed is good. Without the death penalty and with lawyers they and their perversity would have lived on through the tabloids for far too long. Somethings can be debated. Somethings can have access to the legal system. But somethings must simply be snuffed out.
It is also worth noting that Hari Kari, the magazine that preceded Charlie Hebdo and was many times more extreme in all ways, lampooned Christianity to an extreme not even remotely comparable to how Charlie Hebdo lampoons Islam, yet it was shut down by the French Government for smearing DeGaul, only very lightly. Every institution has its limits.
Mr. Schulte:
Difficulties arise when using words like “ alright”, “moral”, “legal”, “just” and other complex terms. Whatever the definitions, there will be conflict on their meaning and use. There will always be tension between what is and is not permissible. General rules are helpful but sometimes issues must be handled on a case by case basis. The larger question is who gets to make those rules and who has to abide by them. What do you suggest?
Excellent post Mike, Thank you.
Schulte: The decision not to advertise any given product or service is an exercise of free speech not censorship. There are no legal constraints on private enterprises in that regard, only economic and, too a lesser extent, moral considerations.
Look for the day when Christian lunatics seek to add fear of violent retribution to that list for any publication that editorializes for abortion rights, religious plurality, and separation of church and state by committing the same type of terrorist acts as the Paris attacks.
RTC – it is an exercise in censorship. If I, as a teacher, restrict the speech of my students, it is censorship, not an exercise in free speech.
Ok gotta read that several more times to make all the connections and add that excellent analysis. If you protect any religion you are forcing religion by law.
The strength of the US is our diversity. Humanity cannot move forward in the organization of chaos if you’re stuck in what you cannot do or say. You never solve and challenge. The Laws of Physics about Probability do not work in controlled societies because you are always afraid of the outcome.
Yes, Paul, MPAA could be more accurate.
Now back to the subject of this blog entry:
Is the right to not be offended a right?
(Child porn is wrong because a child was harmed during its production. Written stories which depict harm to children did not harm any child. The publication of Lolita is allowed. And off topic. Child porn is not illegal for religious reasons alone.)
Is the right to not be offended by blasphemy (and other disrespect of religion) a right?
George – free speech has limits. As I grow older, there is less that I am offended by. However, I do believe that there is a right, by parents, to protect their children from being offended by certain language, images, etc. I think that society, as a whole, has a right to decide that certain language, images are offensive to all and can be criminalized.
Anyone remember the story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty during WWII, played by Gregory Peck in this movie?
“dem adding” = demanding
Thank you, autocorrect!
The problem isn’t the laws, it’s Islam.
There are laws against murder in France, that didn’t stop them.
They’re dem adding the US convert to Islam, by the installment plan.
First, blasphemy laws, then…it wil never stop.
Once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
This application of Sharia law to non-Muslims is a prediction of what may happen when Sharia Law becomes the law of the land.
The “holy” books of all three Abrahamic religions are rife with instruction to kill for religious reasons. Literalists in all three religions exist. There are killers who, but for their religion, would not kill.
In a religiously plural society these are considered outdated, even quaint.
To be fair, there are “literalists” in some non-religious dogmas who kill in that dogma’s name.
Spreading religious practice –do no blasphemy– by the sword. Good practice?
Great post, Mike, and a great reminder on the importance of freedom of thought and expression.
As a side note, anyone who thinks that papers do not advertise X-rated, adult entertainment because of government censorship is simply ill-informed. Publishers make their determinations about what ads to carry based primarily on business reasons. Some ownership groups are opposed to what they consider objectionable content out of moral convictions, which might be construed as a form of self-censorship, but such restraint is, itself, a form of free speech, and not all the subject of this post.
RTC – you can get ‘freebie’ publications that push the ads for xxx-rated films. However, ‘real’ newspapers (for purposes of discussion we can include the NYT) do not advertise MPAA X-rated films.
When you are a judge……….
One of the scariest recent Supreme Court opinions is Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, which can be read at this link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1498.pdf . In that case, plaintiffs sought a ruling that the statute impermissibly prohibited them from engaging in conduct which they argued was allowed under the Constitution. Amongst the type of conduct in which plaintiffs wished to engage was to “train members of the PKK on how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes” and to teach members “how to petition various representative bodies such as the United Nations for relief.” The government argued that this conduct was properly declared illegal under the law and went so far as to argue that the mere fact of filing a brief as amicus curiae in support of a designated terrorist group would constitute a criminal violation of the law.
The vote in that case was 6-3. The Court explicitly refused to address a number of issues, including whether the filing of an amicus brief in support of a designated terrorist organization would constitute a criminal violation of the law. But the majority made very clear that the conduct I described previously in quotation marks was properly criminalized.
If the Court’s opinion in Humanitarian law Project is not scary enough by itself, after you read that opinion, go read the majority opinion in Citizens United and see how comfortable you are trying to reconcile the two opinions.
Also pay attention to the deference that the majority opinion in Humanitarian Law Project gives to Congressional “findings” when they uphold the law. Contrast that with the complete lack of deference to Congressional “findings” by the majority in the recent case which struck down part of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder.
When you are judge, intellectual bankruptcy destroys your legitimacy.
Mr. Schulte:
Yes, I was being sarcastic. My stand on child pornography is that it should not be permitted in that it exploits the young/defenseless for the pleasure of others.
Al O’Heem – so it is alright for the government to censor speech if you agree on the subject matter.
Self-censorship by the movie industry itself for business reasons is a matter of accurate advertising. Patrons know what to expect. Perhaps we need a new letter (say, B for “may be considered Blasphemous by _some_ religion.”).
The Onion and Charlie Hebdo would be rated S for Satire if we rated publications as we do movies.
Those who promote blasphemy law apparently believe that there is a right to not be offended. We already have a law about the words you can’t say on public TV _because some people might be offended_.
Do people have a right not to be offended by public speech?
George – if the MPAA system was accurate, I would agree with you, but the system is so slippery that you really cannot tell what is in the package (film) by the rating.
Decisions about what we may see and read should only be made by state and religious institutions. We are incapable of making those choices on our own and may be harmful to our well-being.
Al O’Heem – I am not sure if you are serious or being sarcastic. Just to be sure, tell us where you stand on the publication of child pornography.
Mike – you forgot to mention that Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952) overturned the long held (1915) case Mutual Film Corp. v Industrial Commission of Ohio which held that movies were business, not art and were liable to censorship, just as cigarette ads are. I know the decision, but I am not sure the SC made the correct decision. I personally think the court was ‘wrong-headed’ in their decision, but it has stuck. I can count on one-hand the number of film masterpieces made in the United States since that decision.
And this did not get rid of censorship. X-rated movies (there is no rating of XXX) are not advertised in local newspapers. That is why if you are going to get an X-rating from the MPAA, you ask to be released Unrated. There is still censorship within the industry using the MPAA ratings. The rating for your film dictates the audience it will get or be allowed. And films are screened and re-cut to get the correct rating that will allow them to maximize their profits.
I can only hope that our current SCOTUS would be so aware of the importance and scope of free speech. I fear that they are more likely to agree with Spellman and Donahue.
Thank you, Mike.
Great Post Mike